Polar Bear

A polar bear loped across the ice floes, fleeing his only enemy—man. He twisted his head back once to look at Alooloo and me. The sled dogs were raising a racket. The bear disappeared behind an iceberg trapped in the frozen Arctic off Greenland. The iceberg glowed translucent and aquamarine in the crisp sunlight.

Alooloo, an Inuit Indian and my friend, lived in a small Eskimo village on the northern tip of Baffin Island. We were out for the last several days dogsledding and hunting seals. He and his people, as for generations past, were connected to the land, to nature, in a way the so-called “civilized” world had for the most part lost.

In that civilized world we suffered from global warming, overpopulation and pollution. The polar bears were dying off and the ice caps were melting. Alooloo and I discussed it. He shook his head in consternation.

“Are your people mad?” he asked. “We have more polar bears than ever over a long time. The sea is frozen. It melts only when it is God’s time to melt it. Why are your people deceiving you?”

Even while I was in the Arctic, global warming demagogues such as Al Gore and company were expressing “concern” over “climate change.” Drastic measures, they warned, had to be taken in order to save the world.

A coalition of scientists, I later learned, were meeting in Washington to study the best method to save the planet from overpopulation. These learned people concluded that one of every three human beings must be eliminated if Earth is to survive. They could either choose how they wanted to die—or governments must mandate liquidation programs.

“The earth’s carrying capacity will no longer be able to keep up with population growth, and civilization will end unless large swaths of human beings are killed,” Cambridge University ecologist Dr. Edwin Peters told Science & Technology magazine.

The polar bear appeared once more on the frozen horizon. He looked at us and then vanished.

“The bear is more civilized than your people,” Alooloo said.

“When the dreadnought Centurion returns to Earth to make contact with indigent Humans and prepare the way for re-colonization, its crew is stranded on the hostile planet inhabited by barbaric savages in a primate, post-apocalyptic society dominated by an all-powerful demon.”

Sanctuary, SciFi by Charles W. Sasser is available in paperback from Amazon.com

Discussion (5) ¬

Chuck, an old friend of my father’s had an expression that very accurately describes the Al Gores and that ilk, “Seldom right, but always convinced.” I personally would like to see those folks on an ice flow heading towards the equator.